


By your side

by babydragon7



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babydragon7/pseuds/babydragon7
Summary: “Are you seriously asking me to tell you about my job in KGB?”
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo
Kudos: 56





	By your side

**Author's Note:**

> So this may be triggering, because it describes a real story about epidemic outbreak in Soviet Union, which Ilya (in my mind) helped fighting more than 60 years ago.
> 
> Origins of T.H.R.U.S.H. are from TV verse, it says so on Wikipedia, so it must be true!
> 
> Also - no sex, just pining, in this one. Sorry!

“Are you seriously asking me to tell you about my job in KGB?” Ilya sounds incredulous.

“Well, I’m bored. Do not forget, we are on the same side now… Just tell me something that is not classified”.

“We are on the same side for now…” Ilya comments dryly. Still he starts to chew on his lip, quite adorably, if you ask Napoleon.

“Okay, Cowboy”, and Napoleon thinks maybe he wants to tell it as much as Napoleon wants to hear it. “This one probably won’t hurt. I heard they wanted to make it into a movie anyway… so here it goes. It was December of 1959, a little more than a year before the first man was launched into space…”

“I knew it”, Napoleon says, “You just want to point out the Soviet Union is winning a space race for now, but let me bet you USA is going to strike back soon and put the first man on the moon!”

Ilya scowls.

“Hell will freeze over first!”

“Thank God, you’re an atheist”.

“Anyway, as I was saying it was a little before New Year, when a renowned Soviet artist had landed in Moscow and then died rather suspiciously and rather abruptly”.

“It warranted a KGB involvement, really?”

“You keep interrupting, and I put you over my knee”, Ilya warns and Napoleon refrains from mentioning he would not actually mind that at all, but keeps quiet just in case. He is half-interested now, and it is not as Ilya _ever_ tells him anything fun or in fact anything at all from his KGB days.

“As I was saying. He dies and it turns out it is a smallpox. Forgotten in Russia, completely cured, not a single outbreak for almost thirty years. You know the one disease that killed of third of Europe’s population in mediaeval times. That smallpox, variola vera”.

“Oh”.

“Yes. So it turns out this artist was in India, went to some funeral, brought the virus back home and we now have a capital that needs to be locked up, several people dead and a potential threat to a seven million city. That is there we came in. We had to investigate all of the connections of the artist, what he did since he came to Moscow, and you know what? It turns out he had a lover!”

Ilya sounds so affronted Napoleon has to smile, although the story is not at all a laughing matter.

“You know how viral the smallpox is? Fortunately, the zero patient brought to both his wife and his lover the same presents, some sort of weird Indian stuff. Both women decided to get rid of those and took them to the thrift shop, and we were able to make a connection from the thrift shop to more people, who could potentially spread a disease and lock them up. It was a hell of time – the KGB, the medics, the Internal Affairs all joining forces. Finally, some ten thousand doctors going around vaccinating all of the population of Moscow. It was… incredible really. I still have a scar I got from that vaccination as a reminder”.

“It’s a hell of a story, Peril. Were you scared?”

“Had no time for that. However, all this investigation, connecting the dots, it felt important. I felt important. We were all in, doctors and intelligence alike, to prevent a bigger disaster and the innocents out there not even aware of the danger lurking… And I thought ‘this is exactly what I’m meant to do in life’”.

Ilya looks so inspired is all Napoleon can do not to go and kiss him. He forgets sometimes that Ilya is not just a gun and a couple of strong and beautiful hands.

“Want to know something else?” Ilya says and he actually blushes, which is again adorable. Napoleon thinks he has it so bad that Ilya is sure to notice it one day. Preferably soon.

Napoleon nods.

“When I grew up I wanted to be a detective. I loved reading about Sherlock Holmes as a child. And after our mission in Istanbul Waverly told me that Sebastian Moran, the second in command to Moriarty, originally founded T.H.R.U.S.H.”

“But these stories are fiction, Peril”.

“They might be, but T.H.R.U.S.H. is real as you’re aware”.

“So what, you joined U.N.C.L.E. for good so you get to play Sherlock, and I get to be your Watson?”

“Oh, please, Cowboy. I know you; you’d fight me to play Sherlock!”

He is right, of course. Napoleon was also once enamored with a great detective, Doyle had created. However, the times are different now, more brutal, less courteous, bombs more deadly, enemies more cunning, no time for smoking the pipe and deducing at leisure. Still the thing they do is a worthy one. And with Ilya by his side he can save lives and have fun, what’s more to ask.

“You know, Peril, with all this saving of the world, you can count me right in”.

Ilya smiles.


End file.
